568 Brook Street

568 BROOK STREET

HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE

In 1892, Fred Miller (sometimes spelled Muller in city records) purchased land within A. J. Waldron’s Subdivision. Miller was a carpenter who had built houses all over Elgin, and therefore it is unlikely he actually lived in 568 Brook. Nonetheless, owner of record or owner-occupied, Miller’s name appears until 1897 when he sold the home to Charles and Marietta Gardinier of Wauconda for $3,500. This marks quite the increase from the original $925 Miller paid when first purchasing the land.

A number of different owners are listed in the following years until 1908 when Leo Danner purchased the home. Danner worked in a multiple of facets of the beverage industry including both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, working later as an agent for Anheuser-Busch in the partnership of Danner & Markwardt. The house has since changed hands several more times over the years.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

568 Brook is a Gabled-Ell style home, a style popular for many years through the turn of the 19th century for their simplicity is design, and thus price. Some of the features indicative of the style seen on 568 Brook is the rectangular shape of the floor plan, the two stories, original wood clapboard exterior siding, an intersection front and side gabled roof and 1-over-1 double-hung windows.

The current front porch is an expanded one compared to the 1897 Sanborn Map. The full-width porch with rounded columns add a touch of ornamentation to the home, a nod to the time in which it was built and the popularity at the time of highly stylized homes like Queen Annes.